I have to say this is really disappointing and short sighted. Not just because it makes a mockery of the current morring reduction trial period but because of the further impact on the towapth.
Back in 2016, the north side towpath was resurfaced from the city centre,, out towards Wolverhampton. At that time I was doing my post-grad thesis on 'towpath conflict' and how changes to the built environment could either increase or decrease it. I spoke at length with A*** M******* who was the project lead for Birmingham City Council and J*** H***** who was the project lead for CRT. As part of these meetings we discussed the towpath 'improvements' on the north side and I was told that the same would be done on the south side at some point. I expressed my concerns about this, my comments being along the lines of "now that one side is done, it has pushed many towpath users to the other, muddier side so they can get away from the cyclists. if you do the other side the dog walkers etc will have nowhere to go". Having 2 towpaths means that 2 different surfaces and approaches can be adopted and everyone can be catered for.
It was like talking to a brick wall. Both of them simply couldn't conceive of a reason why a towpath shouldn't be tarmacked if there's money to do it. I was met with blank stares from both of them when I tried to explain the problem. In 2016, the money came from the DfT via a thing called the Cycle City Ambition Grant. I presume another pot of grant money has now been awarded and again CRT and BCC can't think of anything to do with it but to tarmac more towpath. I was told in 2016 that the towpaths were chosen because they were "quick wins".
In case you were wondering, yes I found various postive correlations between 'improving' towpaths and various negative outcomes, including more accidents and injuries and towpath users being driven away. It's also worth mentioning that the works done on the towpaths are often in direct contravention of the Trust's own guidelines for towpath design, introduced in 2013 https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/original/6873.pdf?v=cafb81